CO-OP Isn’t Changing. It’s Transforming

CO-OP has been making news with big changes, most recently with the announcement that the company is acquiring its longtime strategic partner TMG, and that they’re partnering with software developer Feedzai to develop a machine learning tool with artificial intelligence to combat fraud. These changes are among many at CO-OP, but they only tell part of the story. CO-OP is using these developments to launch its digital transformation journey.

If you’ve been following the conversations about digital transformation on CO-OPTHINK.org, you already know that this process entails more than acquiring new channels or technology. Food for thought from the THINK blog:

“The modern credit union must go beyond simply adding new or improved digital channels for its members. To meet the challenges of today’s digital reality, credit unions must transform themselves. While the member-facing objective of a digital credit union is clear – being able to deliver a unified, omnichannel and extraordinary customer experience – the ultimate goal is to become a frictionless enterprise.”

How do the initiatives add up? Here’s a short list of ways that CO-OP is transforming:

One Company, One Ecosystem

The addition of TMG to the CO-OP family creates an opportunity to form a single network for credit, debit, ATM and Shared Branching. Using TMG’s powerful Springboard software as a launching point, CO-OP plans to integrate data seamlessly, giving credit unions a more holistic view of their members. “The combined forces of TMG and CO-OP provide credit unions with a single point of entry to the most innovative, tailored, cost-effective products and services as they prepare for a future being transformed by digitization,” CO-OP President/CEO Todd Clark wrote in an open letter to the credit union movement.

Simplifying this connection empowers credit unions to manage more data and greater complexity with ease. And by making the experience more seamless for credit unions, CO-OP is making it possible to provide a more seamless experience for members.

While the hope is that this combined network will make the job of evolving technology easier too, the purpose of it goes beyond the simple addition of new tools and channels. This is not an update or an upgrade, but the entrée to a new way of looking at business.

Less Friction, Faster Response

Reducing friction at every level is a company-wide goal. The purpose: Improving the potential response time when demand exists for new technology. Example: CO-OP’s partnership with Feedzai on a new machine learning/AI tool to fight fraud. With fraud rising to unprecedented levels, new fraud-fighting techniques and technologies are at a premium.

Instead of dwelling on the complexity involved in taking this new direction, CO-OP has moved forward into uncharted territory. The result will be a ground-breaking security technology that is not only accessible for credit unions and applicable to transactions of every size, but also available to the market at considerable speed. It’s not just the technology here, but the ability to jump on the opportunity and deliver it at scale that tells the transformation story.

Re-Imagining the Team

It doesn’t hurt that CO-OP’s team now includes roughly 1,500 employees – all with industry expertise and a commitment to the credit union movement. With this expanded field of talent, identifying, creating and implementing new technology is more frictionless from a human angle.

CO-OP’s reorganized Executive Management Team is also built to contend with accelerated change, with an emphasis on security, digital expertise and strategic product leadership from former TMG CEO Shazia Manus.

More change is on the horizon as CO-OP moves forward. A strategic partnership with Zelle, a new real-time P2P payments network from Early Warning, promises new digital payment options for clients to offer their members later this year. And a business intelligence tool in development will help to leverage analytics.

Developing technologies, maximizing talent, reducing friction, speeding response, integrating platforms – these are all critical moves, but none is more critical than transformation itself. The orchestration of change is all for a single purpose: becoming a different kind of organization, one that’s ready to meet the challenges of a digital world and in turn help credit unions transform themselves.

Launch your digital transformation journey with us at THINK 17, being held May 8 – 11 in New York City. There’s still time: Register now below.